Legal Commentary

When my family moved from Virginia to Indiana and I began teaching at Notre Dame, we knew that living in the Midwest would present a cultural change from the D.C. area.  We learned of one unanticipated adjustment on a Sunday afternoon when my family was grocery shopping.  We wheeled the cart up to the cashier, loaded with vegetables, fruit, cereal, and an innocent-looking bottle of red wine for dinner.  The teenaged cashier looked at us in shock and informed us that, of course, we could not buy wine on Sunday.  Chastened, my husband returned the bottle to the wine section of the grocery store and we learned our lesson.

Indiana has a variety of temperance-era laws restricting the sale of alcohol.  You cannot buy it on Christmas, Sundays, or election days before the polls close.  You cannot buy it between 3:00 A.M. and 7:00 A.M.  You also cannot buy hard alcohol (but can buy beer and wine) at grocery stores that do not have a pharmacy.  Indiana recently enacted daylight savings time, though, and on the day when the time "sprung forward" a few days ago, sales were allowed until 4:00 A.M.

It turns out that around 19 states have so-called "blue laws" that prohibit alcohol sales on Sunday, although advocacy groups estimate that such laws result in lost annual tax revenue of over $36 million in some states.  Alcohol-control laws vary widely from state to state, ranging from Kansas, which only legalized alcohol in 1948, to Louisiana, where I grew up with drive-through daiquiri stores.

The topic of alcohol in Indiana actually has a fascinating history, which intertwines with the Civil War, the early roots of the political parties, splits between religious denominations, fights between the "wets" and the "drys," and the Ku Klux Klan. Indeed, the Prohibition Party had conventions in Indiana until 1959, was on the ballot until 1968 (when it gained .22% of the vote), and had headquarters in Indiana until 1971.

While the temperance laws still exist, views on the topic may be coming full circle.  Capitalizing on the microbrew boom, microdistilleries have been developing in the Midwest and some liquor laws are being relaxed.  An article in the Times featured the owner of a distillery in southern Indiana who helped draft an Indiana law that allowed the operation of artisanal distilleries.  As he reports, "I can?t make whiskey, but can make anything that would come from raw ingredients for wine. I?m experimenting with grape vodka now."  The man?s distillery and winery attract 500,000 tourists annually.

I haven?t heard of any movement in Indiana to repeal the temperance laws.  Maybe that?s just as well, because I?m in no hurry to buy grape vodka on Sunday or any other day.